Lawmaker seeks university tuition waivers for foster kids

Sen. Adam Driggs, R-Phoenix, authored a bill that would create a pilot program offering current and former foster children tuition waivers at Arizona’s public universities and community colleges. (Cronkite News Service Photo by Lauren Saria)

Chris Spiva grew up in a group home where every hour of his day was tightly scheduled.

Unlike other kids, he wasn’t granted very much independence. He wasn’t allowed to hang out at his friends’ houses or walk to a nearby mall alone.

Experts say that many foster children who grow up in highly structured environments fail to make the crucial transition to living independently at age 18. After they age out of foster care they can end up homeless, jobless or incarcerated.

That isn’t how Spiva’s story goes, however. Today he works in the aviation industry, and he credits being able to attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University for his successful transition to adult life.

“The only reason I am successful today is because I was given that time to learn to be an adult,” he said.

A state lawmaker wants to help more foster children have access to a college education, giving them a period to transition between their childhood and entering the adult world.

SB 1208, authored by Sen. Adam Driggs, R-Phoenix, would create a five-year pilot program to provide tuition waiver scholarships for current and former foster children at state’s public universities and community colleges.

The Senate Education Committee unanimously endorsed the bill Thursday, forwarding it to the Appropriations Committee.

Driggs said the issue came to his attention through Valley Leadership, the largest leadership development program in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Young adults from the nonprofit organization’s Leadership Institute asked him to sponsor the bill.

“They found this issue, they worked really hard on it and really brought this issue along,” he told the committee.

According to a 2009 report from the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, only 20 percent of foster children who graduate with a high school diploma go on to college. The same report estimates only half of foster children graduate from high school by age 18.

Other states including California, Utah, Texas and Florida already offer some amount of free tuition for foster children. Unlike in those states, supporters said HB 1208 would build accountability into Arizona’s system by requiring an audit of the program in 2017.

“This is one step we can take to make it a little bit easier for those young people to have a successful adult life,” said Sen. Rick Murphy, R-Peoria, a member of the committee who signed on a primary sponsor.

Spiva and several other former foster children told the committee that aging out of the foster system at 18 doesn’t just mean gaining independence for young adults.

“What that really means is you have to leave everything you’ve known behind – your entire support structure,” he said. “So what do you do?”

Even though Spiva was able to get an education, a tuition waiver at a state university could have prevented him from having to take out $300,000 in student loans.

“That continues to be a burden on my life,” he said. “Sometimes you just want to be without another burden on your life as you try to make a success of yourself.”

Scottsdale resident Paul Blavin, a retired CEO and co-founder of international investment firm Blavin & Co., established the Blavin Scholars Fund in 2006 to help foster children attend college at University of Michigan.

Blavin told the committee investing in young adults’ education could also help taxpayers by keeping former foster children from needing assistance through other government programs such as unemployment or welfare.

“Put simply it’s the best investment I’ve ever made – and I made my money investing,” he said.

Foster children in Arizona:

As of September 2012

• 14,111 placed in out-of-home care due to abuse, neglect or abandonment.
• 11,391 placed with relatives or licensed foster parents.
• Approximately 80.7 percent in out-of-home care.
• 58 children placed with their parents on a trial home visit.
• 325 youth were residing in independent living settings.
• 39 up to age 3 in shelter care.
• 56 up to age 6 in group homes.

As a former foster this would have helped me out a lot. If you look at the statistics of kids that age out of foster most don’t graduate college, a lot have run ins with the law and many are on public assistance. Why not help these kids now so they don’t have to live off public assistance most of their lives and with a good job they are less likely to commit petty crimes.